Brave or Grave
by Flash69
Summary: The tale of John D, disturbed street fighter and his manager "CD", as they proceed to fight the good fight get rich and then lose it all. (maybe)
1. Pt1 Forget Danger! You aren't safe anywh...

Capcom has copyright on all characters in this fanfiction with the exception of John D, CD and Enzo Paredux, all of which a property of me, Flash69. The Boeing 377 may exist, it may be a cargo-plane, or I * might * have just made it up on the spot. In any case I do not own Boeing.  
  
Brave or Grave  
By Flash69  
  
Pt1  
  
"How much!?" was the first thing John said upon seeing the Boeing 377 cargo plane.   
"How much, did this cost you?"  
The person he was talking to told him.  
He passed out.  
While John D. is waking up, I'll explain what the hell is going on around here.   
John D is a street fighter. The man he's talking to, Mr Charles Davids "CD" Wellsborough is his manager and the new proud owner of a cargo plane. And although it's not John's money, it's not really CD's either.   
When CD left the family estate with the mixed blessings of his family to seek his fortune, he left with a one shot loan from the Wellsborough fortune as per tradition.  
He has until his fiftieth birthday to earn what he's spent or the Wellsborough family dynasty brings out the hammers and starts looking for kneecaps. At the moment CD is thirty-five, John was twenty-five a few minutes ago but now looks more like forty.   
As John gets up and slowly steadies himself, taking his time to stem a nosebleed with a spare tissue, he brings up his main objection to his managers new purchase.   
"How the hell am I supposed to earn you that much!? What am I, Ken Masters?!"  
CD could have picked any number of career paths or ventures to earn his loan back, Oil digging, the world of biogenetics, but he had to choose the world of street fighting.  
As John so succinctly put it "when you pin your hopes on a shining star, it usually a good idea to make sure it's not a supernova."   
As such there's only one person who is going to get CD in the Black, and that is John D. A man who can't even use chi due to psychological reasons, gods help him.  
  
---Two days later---aboard CD's plane, "The Albatross"---  
  
John D is sitting in a crew chair, his hands digging into the armrests so tightly that it's going to leave grooves when he gets up. Chair fourteen is now officially "Johns Chair".   
CD shook his head in disbelief, how can the guy be afraid of flying? To the best of CD's patchy knowledge, John was an ex-marine. In fact a lot of what he knew about John was patchy, at the beginning he'd accepted it as part of the job, but he was beginning to suspect he should have looked a little deeper into John D.'s background, hell he didn't even know what the "D" stood for.  
"CD where are we?" said an immobile John. CD checked his watch and did a few calculations.  
"Over South America, probably."   
"Can we go down now?"  
"In a minute."   
CD shook his head and left for the cockpit, muttering the word "Baby" under his breath before leaving the room.  
John heard him, but wasn't in the mood for making an issue of it.   
Instead he just sat back and tried to remember whom he was fighting now. CDs reasons for buying the plane were simple; the really big paying fights were intercontinental, as opposed to the small back alley fights he'd been doing in America. To be fair it wasn't as if those sorts of fights were a challenge, but John had a feeling in his gut that if he ever met an opponent who knew what he was doing, he'd lose.   
He looked at the photos CD had kindly put up so as to let him look at them without having to actually use his hands. They showed a man called Enzo Paredux, a Columbian martial artist, skilled in Paredux Akido.   
The guy had long black dreadlocks, which blended in with his light brown skin. Not tall, but tall enough, wearing a simple tracksuit. John began to go over what he'd been told about his opponent, 48 battles 13 losses, 31 wins and 5 draws, uses his own deadly variation of Akido, confident, believed to be involved in the Columbian drugs cartels and owns half a million dollars in land. All of which combined to give John a bad feeling in his gut.  
  
The two fighters stared at each other without emotion in the fight cage, surrounded by Enzo's fans. John saw that Enzo was wearing the tracksuit trousers from the photo but had eschewed the top in favour of a simple white vest.   
Enzo saw a white American with blond non-descript hair. A loose fitting Ochre jacket and orange and black camouflage combat trousers; the ensemble was finished with the black leather boots. In short, he looked like a soldier.   
With a simple nod to the referee, wisely deciding to stay outside of the cage, the starters bell dinged.  
Enzo swung at him with a lethal kick, and then spun his fist towards John's head, the kick had been wide by the mark but his fist managed a glancing blow against John's head. John vision blurred and he staggered slightly, he then punched Enzo in the gut. Enzo wheezed as the air was knocked out of him, but quickly retaliated with a two fisted strike that knocked John onto the floor. The Viper Twin, Enzo's lethal technique. The last person Enzo had used it on suffered a shattered breastbone and had died in the ring as fragments of his own bone pierced his heart.   
CD covered his eyes with his hands; time to start looking for a new fighter he thinks, then he notices that Johns is not only alive, but also not even bleeding. "Jesus, who the hell are you John D..." CD mutters. He really is going to have to do some background checks on his employees some time.  
John rolled to the side, and realised that at least one of his ribs was broken. Mainly because it hurt when he rolled onto his side. Enzo was already raising the arms to the crowd thinking that he had won.   
John realized that Enzo had made an error, that error being that he'd underestimated John D.   
John got back to his feet and resumed his stance. Enzo looked behind him at the last moment his eyes widening at the fact that John was still able to survive after his patented lethal blow.   
John hit him, it wasn't a hard punch, but it loosed a filling in Enzos molar causing him to take the time to spit it out. For his troubles John thrust his knee into Enzo's midsection, he then proceed to clutch at his dreadlocks pulled his head up and head-butted him  
Once  
Twice  
Three times.   
Enzo staggered, getting a head-butt from John was comparable to beating your head against a stone wall. John pressed his advantage further and swung his leg at Enzos midsection, Enzo fell to floor, rolled over and leapt backwards, both of his legs swiping upwards knocking Johns chin and causing him to take a step backwards.   
Enzo adopted his fighting stance before beginning to charge chi into his hands. Johns eyes widened, he'd never actually fought an opponent who could use a chi attack before. He knew he couldn't use one unless he wanted to have a relapse of what happened a year and a half ago, but what would happen if one hit him? The green fireball of energy propelled itself out of Enzo's hands and slammed into John's chest, it burnt, agitated his broken ribs and sent him to the floor.   
The answer to his question it would seem was: the same as everybody else.  
John realised he was in danger of losing this match, not that it really bothered him, it was just that since he had come so very far, it seemed a shame to lose. John slowly rose up once more and adopted his stance again.   
Enzo raised his eyebrows amazed at this Americans endurance leapt towards him, his leg outstretched in a flying kick.   
John sidestepped, and Enzo's foot hit the Iron Gate and leapt off. He landed and faced John, Enzo swung out with a flurry of punches, and a few got through Johns defence but largely the attacks had no effect. John's ribs were giving him trouble, he believed one of them might have pierced a lung, due to his difficulty in breathing, John realised he had to end the match or die on the floor, so he chose the former.  
He leapt forward, ignoring the protests of his ribs and poked Enzo in the eye, Enzo squealed and shut the other eye, giving John the opportunity to close the gap.  
Then John got him in a headlock and gave it a good yank. There was a faintly sickening crunching sound and Enzo Paredux fell to floor unconscious.  
CD shook his head as John took the prize money.   
"He's really got to work on those finishes..."   
  
John was limping as he left the ring proceeding in the general direction of the airport. His breathing was laboured and he tasted his blood in his mouth, he had wavered a doctor looking him over, he didn't want to have to explain why he was still alive to a Columbian doctor or anyone for that matter.   
"I mean honestly John, you don't even have any signature moves do you? You just won on basic endurance and a few back alley tricks. I don't think that this is going to cut in this competition." Said CD as he signalled a Taxi. Once inside CD asked for the airport. "I mean take our next fight, against some girl called Sakura Kusen.. Kusanagi..Kiseragi er... Anyways, I've seen the shots, she's a real chi fighter! Your gonna have to work on your moves before we get to Japan!"  
John eyes bulged at the thought of going that far in a plane. CD noted his expression and smirked.  
John just grimaced at CD as they left the taxi and began to walk along the runway towards the Albatross.  
As John sat down and strapped in he checked to make sure that there was no one in earshot.  
CD was talking to a member of the crew, something about local fuel costs. There was no one else in sight.   
He gripped the armrests tightly and squeezed his chest. He exhaled sharply as burning pain shot through his chest. A few seconds passed and then there was an audible "pop". John relaxed as his breathing came easier now, his rib popped back into place and his lung was able to heal. John coughed once into his hand, he felt substance upon it and looked down at the reddish-golden liquid that was spattered over the top of his fist.   
John took a tissue and wiped the Deusplasm from his hands and placing the now smouldering tissue in the ashtray.   
He then took a cigarette out of his jacket pocket and lit up.   
With a roar of the engines the Albatross left Columbia and headed towards Japan.  
  
Liked it? Hated it? Tell me why!  



	2. Pt2 Questions and Answers

Trust me, you'd know if I owned Capcom, believe you me.  
Also I don't own that class film legend "Enter the Dragon", I did however see it on TV last night.   
All other characters (which at this point tally in as [deep breath] John D/Joe Dante, CD, Pathsure, Flashpoint and Deusplasm the mystic blood of the gods [wheeze])are owned by me.   
No fighting in this one, just answering the load of questions that part one threw up (namely just who the hell is John D.?)   
  
Brave or Grave (Revised)  
Flash69  
  
Pt2  
  
  
John was already on his twelfth cigarette, and they were barely out of Columbia. CD looked at the Aerophobic Street fighter for a second before shaking his head once again in disbelief and returning to his magazine. 'Still, at least his using a hand for something other than to make grooves in the seats.' He thought.  
Then he remembered something.  
"Uh John, you can't smoke on the plane, remember?"   
John gave him just gave him a dirty look.   
"Hey don't go all 'enter the dragon' on me, just put them out."  
He did nothing. CD was about to get up and do it himself when he looked at what he was holding in his left hand.   
Now a little bit red in the face CD stubbed out his cigar and asked John again.   
Only to find that he'd already stubbed his cigarette out.  
  
John realized that CD had forgotten to give him info about his next fight. All he had was a first name and an alleged preference for Chi based attacks. As for special moves, John didn't want to risk aggravating his condition by using any form of soul based power.  
John was not a religious man, because it's hard to have faith in a god who you know can make mistakes.   
John didn't worship this god, but he did know that this god did exist.   
Confused? Let me explain, but make sure your sitting comfortably first, this may take a while.  
There is a god called Pathsure, he's not very famous or powerful, in fact he is often referred to as a Demi-god. Although obscure, Pathsure is nevertheless a god of heroes. Like most gods however sunning it up in Olympus or heaven or wherever gods go can get a little boring, especially to a god like Pathsure. So he decided he wanted an Avatar, a mortal shell for him to inhabit. So he had a look around and did something that John wasn't sure if he was thankful for or not. He made an avatar out of dead people. In fact Pathsure still making avatars like that, choosing people who have no other choice.  
He took two people that had died during a military ambush, and unable to choose which one to resurrect he merged the two of them together into a single being, which he called Flashpoint. He then inhabited the body and went off to live the life of high sails and adventure.   
Unfortunately he had made a mistake.  
Two people don't go into one, when he created Flashpoint, he also created John Dante, created from the other halves of Pathures selection. This might have been fine had things stayed the same. But Pathsure began to empower Flashpoint with powers divine, and what happened to Flashpoint would happen to John in turn, this is where the trouble started.  
Flashpoint had a god used to such power acting as his soul, John Dante however had a weak human soul and under the immense weight of this divine power, it twisted and shattered. It became dark and sadistic, and as his soul began to corrupt so did his body, it became hunched,grew pointed teeth and along his fingers were giant metal claws where the nails should be. This demons name was simply Joe Dante.  
The demon promptly went on a rampage of blood and destruction across the country and left a trail of death half a mile wide in his wake, infuriated by his own existence as a mistake.  
Joe Dante was eventually defeated, on the top of a speeding train by Flashpoint. This defeat confused the human soul into believing that it had been killed and it momentarily left the body, this was the one chance Johns sane mind had been waiting for. He retook control over his own body leaving his soul to hammer at the locked gates of his mind.   
And when John sleeps he can still hear Joe outside, screaming his own name.  
  
John exhaled, as he woke up, the cries of his soul still echoing in his mind. He didn't mind them as much as he used to anymore, but they still perturbed him with tales of what his own hands had done. He checked his watch; he had slept for about two hours. He still had a long time to go before he got to Japan. He noticed that CD had kindly been able to find a picture of his next opponent. It showed a girl who was barely into her teens, wearing a Sailor girl outfit that seemed to be somehow popular in Japan, and a white headband. It was probably old, as no one fights in these circuits when they're that young. John shuffled to the side and looked out the window, the outside was blue with small wispish clouds. It should be a nice day John thinks. He turns back into his seat and looks at his calloused hands, ruddy instruments that he uses in such a violent fashion, he looks at them again, he can almost see the power in them that he could unlock without the help of a soul, but it remains just out of his comprehension.John sighs the sigh of a man consigned to his fate and leans over and goes back to sleep, that, and his own private demons.  
  
Ah ha! Revised this chapter! Nothing makes you realise youve made a horrible mistake like publishing it first! Did you like? If so, tell me why! Okay, I know maybe I didn't answer all of the questions, but that's mainly because not even I know why Johns afraid of flying. And I'm the freakin' Author!  
Adios Amigos!  
Flash69  



End file.
